Southern standard. (McMinnville, Tenn.) 1879-current, 1887-09-24
The Impeachment of King Alcohol.

we are mere 10 CONFRONT tne great
est enemy of our time, to handle
the greatest living question. This
monster has the world for a home,
the flesh for a mother, and the devil
for a father. He stands erect, a mon
ster offabulous proportions. He has
no head, and cannot think; he has
no heart and cannot feel he has no
eyes, and cannot see he has no ears
and cannot hear. He has only an
instinct by which to plan, a fang by
which to sting, and an infinite nav
in which to consume his victims.
We impeach this monster, and ar
raign him before the bar Of the pub
lie judgement and demand his con-
domination in the name of industry,
robbed and beggared of the public
peace, disturbed and broken Of pri-
vate safety, gagged and garroted Of
common justice, violated and tram
pied of the popular conscience, de-
bauched and Frustrated; Of royal
manhood, wrecked and ruined, and
Of helpless innocence, waylaid and
assassinated. With the gold his
crimes have brought him, he seeks to
secure friends in the halls of legisla-
ton to put his judges upon the
bench, his advocates at the bar, his
witnesses on the stand, and to make
surety doubly sure, his views in the
public mind. He would fill not only
our cells and g%raveyards, but also
our judgment seats and police
commissions. This is our foe-cun-
ming as a fox, wise as a serpent,
strong as an OK, bold as a lion, mer-
CHESS as IA tiger, remorselesss as a
hyena, fierce as a ~pestilence, deathly
as a plague. To condemn and cor
rect such a criminal isnot the pastime
ofan hour, but the manly, hero-born,
martyr-bred work of a lifetime.
This enemy stands among us, the
history of whose reign is a historylof
repeated injuries and usurpations, all
having indirect object-the establish
ment of an absolute tyranny over
mankind. To prove this let facts be
submitted to a candid world. He
has refused to submit to laws the
most wholesome and necessary for
the public good; he has kept among
us in times of peace, staggering ar
mics; with the consent of our legis-
%latureS, he has deprived our citizens,
in many cases, of trial by sober iu-
ries he has transported many of our
citizens beyond the bounds of reason
into the seas of dissipation and ruin ;
he has imposed taxes on us for the
support of pauperism and crimes of
his own engendering he has estab-
lished and sustained depots for the
manufacture and sale of the most
, destructive instruments to complete
the works of death, desolatiOn and
pertidy unparalleled in the most bar
barous ages, and utterly insuffera-
BILE among a civilized people; he has
f occasioned more than three-fourths
of the crime, and more than one-half
of the insanity in the community,
and thereby filled our prisons, our
alms-houses and lunatic asylums he
has influenced our elections by bri-
i, berry and corruption he has destroy
ed the lives of tens of thousands of
our citizens annually in the most
mercilesS manner; he has turned
aside hundreds of thousands more
of our free and independent citizens
to idleness and vice, infused into
them the spirit of demons and de-
graded them below the level OF
brutes he has made thousands of
widows and orphans and destroyed
, the fondest hopes and blasted the
brightest prospects he has entered
our courts of justice and our legisla-
tive halls and disturbed their coun-
ellis, and even the sanctuaries of our
religion, and the ministers at the al
F, tar have not altogether, escaped his
prevailing and blighting influence
he has encouraged Sabbath breaking,
profanity, impurity, thieving, house
burning, robbery, gambling, SANDER
, and fighting, and has ruined the
morals of every community over
which he has obtained an influence
he has dishonoreG God, in whose
image and for whose glory man was
, created, by sinking his image be-
, meath the level of the irrational
brutes.
We will now call the world to wit
ness if we have been wanting in at
tention and forbearance to the trai.
tor while he has been extending his
,,..,.,,IoIlA ,,;,I,ntsox 1900 80